


I've Got You

by whenyouheldtheknife



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Homophobic Language, Language, M/M, Mild Language, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whenyouheldtheknife/pseuds/whenyouheldtheknife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's always had a rough time with kids at school. And one day, it's too much for him to continue keeping inside and handling on his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Got You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snalf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snalf/gifts).



“God, what a little weirdo.” 

“He’s probably gay as hell.” 

“Haha, yeah, didn’t you hear?” 

“He’s got a boyfriend?” 

“Oh my God, what a fag!” 

Their words haunt you on your bus ride home from school, running over and over in your mind, growing shriller with each replay. You feel tears brimming in your eyes and you shut them tightly closed, willing yourself not to cry, not on the bus. That would just show them how weak and stupid you really are. 

The bus stutters to a stop at your house and you stand up too soon, thrown back into your seat when the vehicle fully brakes. That earns you a load of laughter from the back of the bus and you feel your whole face heat up in shame and embarrassment as you stand up again and practically propel yourself off of the bus and onto your front walk. 

Your eyes are starting to hurt from holding back the tears, but it is only a few more steps before you’re turning the doorknob, walking inside, slamming the door behind you, and leaning your back against it. 

You take a deep, shuddering breath in and slide down the door, letting yourself cry only when you finally hit the floor. 

The sobs come in gasps that feel like they rip your own breath from you and you shove your hands up under your glasses to make fists and push them into your closed eyes, trying to get the tears to stop somehow as your shoulders shake. 

In your pocket, your phone begins to vibrate with an incoming call. You take a deep breath to try and calm yourself and hold it, trying to prevent your own body from betraying you by expelling the breath all in one push. You reach into your pocket and pull your phone out, seeing your best friend’s – also your boyfriend’s – name light up the screen, four small letters; Dave. You want to pick it up and answer it and hear his voice, you really do, but you can’t let him hear how you sound right now. You’ve known Dave for years and only started dating him a few months ago; you know he has his own problems to take care of and you don’t want to be another problem to him. 

You set the phone down on the ground beside you and reach both hands up to your head, grabbing fistfuls of your thick black hair and tugging on it. Your eyes squeeze shut and a small whine escapes you as a few more tears leak from your eyes at the pain. You can’t deal with this anymore the way you have been for the past few years of high school; you can’t deal with the accidentally-on-purposely being shoved into lockers and other people every day and you can’t take the name-calling and you can’t take the self-hatred that’s been slowly welling up inside of you. You just can’t. 

On the ground beside you, your phone buzzes, alerting you to a new voicemail. You glance at it for a moment, debating, then pick it up and listen. 

“John, dude, pick up, I’ve gotta tell you somethin’ important. C’mon, it’ll put a smile on that pretty face of yours, I guarantee it.” The message ends and you pause, your fingers hovering over the keypad for a moment before you give in and dial Dave’s number. 

“Sup,” Dave says, answering you on the first ring, and you can already hear the worry in his voice, just in that word alone. “Did I catch ya at a busy time? You pretty much always pick up,” he adds, and then pauses. Shit. He really wants an answer? 

“Uh…” You stop; you sound awful, even to your own ears. There’s no way that Dave wants to hear this kid with the stuffy voice go on, but you do it anyway. “I… I didn’t hear it ring,” you lie, and your insides squirm. You hate lying in general, but you especially hate lying to Dave. He’s known you for practically forever; it’s unfair to him, but you think that if you told him the real reason why you hadn’t picked up, it would just cause him stress. 

Dave tsks on his end of the line and you can practically picture him rolling his eyes behind his shades. “You suck at lyin’ and you sound like shit. I’ll be over in an hour.” He hangs up. 

You start to feel panic now. How bad did you sound on the phone? Dave lives a few towns away from you, outside of your school district, but if he takes the public buses he can still easily get to your house. 

Shit. You can’t let him see you like this; you can’t let him see you being so weak and dumb and with gross just-cried face. You stand up stiffly, registering stiffness in your muscles as you do, and you walk through the living room and into the kitchen. You get to the sink and take your glasses off, scrubbing at your face with hot water, not caring that it feels like it’s going to burn your face off. 

You dry your face with a clean towel by the sink and put your glasses back on, then turn around and survey the kitchen for a moment. You know that you should eat something, but just the thought of food makes your stomach churn unpleasantly. Instead, you go back to the living room and lie down on the couch, fixing your eyes on the ceiling to try and calm your nerves. 

\- - -

You wake up rather abruptly to someone knocking a funky rhythm out on your door and you sit straight up with a quiet gasp, shocked out of sleep as you realize that you, well, you fell asleep. You get up from the couch and answer the door. 

Dave is standing on the other side, just like you knew he would be, and you look up at him, taking him all in in just a moment; his shades, his somehow-perfectly-messy blond hair, his favorite red shirt, and even the freckles dusting the bridge of his nose and spreading out onto the rest of his face. He has a backpack on and you wonder if he came here straight from school; the thought makes you feel like you matter to him until you realize that you probably stressed him out so much that he didn’t even go home. 

“What the hell happened today, man?” he asks you as he walks into the house and takes off his bag, tossing it on the floor before turning back around to face you. 

You aren’t facing him; instead, you have a nice view of the door that you just closed. The words are out before you can even try to censor them. “The usual, everyone called me a fag and some guys I don’t know shoved me into a locker because they hate me. But it’s fine. I’m used to it by now,” you said, still facing the door. You hate the way that your voice shakes when you speak and you hate how you just let those words slip out. Dave knows you’re weak now, a voice in your head hisses at you, and he’ll be leaving any second now. “Hey-“ he starts to say, but you interrupt him, your voice getting louder. 

“I mean, who cares anyway, right? I’m just another loser kid who can’t learn how to fucking deal,” you said, your fist tightening around the doorknob as your shoulders begin to shake again. 

“Stop-“ Dave tries to cut in, but you’re on a roll. 

“I’m weak and stupid and you probably don’t want me and I’m –“ you take a shuddering breath, fresh tears slipping down your cheeks as all of your muscles tense – “I’m a fa-“ You cut off abruptly as Dave grabs your shoulders and turns you around. You look up into his eyes – his real, red eyes; his shades are gone – shocked at the fierceness you see in them, and at how they have a bit of a shine to them, as if Dave is trying to not cry like you were earlier today. 

“You are not what they say you are,” he says, his voice raw, and your heart flutters and catches in your throat, a caged bird. 

“But-“ 

“No,” Dave interrupts. “John, I fuckin’ love you, and I know that those stupid words they say don’t apply to you.” He stops and kisses your forehead. “I,” he says, and kisses one cheek, “love,” and he kisses the other, “you.” He looks you in the eye, then leans down and kisses you on the mouth, his arms slipping down to hold you around your waist as your rise up and wind around his neck, pulling Dave closer to you. 

And then you’re crying again, sobbing again, a harsh, broken sound, and Dave pulls away from the kiss but crushes your body closer to his, one arm wrapped around your back and the other around tour head, pressing your ear to his heart. 

“I’ve got you,” Dave says, rocking you both back and forth slightly while he stands there, holding you while you cry into his favorite red shirt. “I’ve got you.” 


End file.
